In 2009, a huge hubbub arose when a Danish comic artist portrayed the Muslim prophet Mohammed with a bomb on his head in place of a turban. Muslims, whose Islamic law forbid any visual representations of their God (to avoid idolatry), became extremely offended by this obvious suggestion of Mohammed as a terrorist. Thousands of Muslims worldwide protested the posting of this drawing in all forms and many threatened the artist and any involved members of Danish newspapers that printed this image.
A Saudi Arabian law firm filed a suit against all of the Danish newspapers that published this cartoon. The letter stated that the drawing was offensive and insulted the many ancestors of Mohammed, as well as his followers and demanded an apology and removal of any offensive material. Recently, one newspaper organization, Politiken, apologized for the reprinting of the cartoon and stated that it was never an expression of the newspaper’s beliefs or opinions, but a mere transmission of regular news content.
Upon hearing about this incident when it first broke out, I could see both sides of the issue. On one hand, yes, to be a Muslim and to see this kind of image would be very offensive to me, especially because it presented a negative view of a part of my belief and culture that was highly integral to me and my life; and should this comic have depicted something or someone as important to me as Mohammed is to Muslims, I, too, would pissed off.
However, as an art historian, I believe that a drawing like this is acceptable. It is not pleasant, to be certain, and it is certainly not flattering, but in its essence, it is art. Art throughout the ages has always been inflammatory and highly contentious; from the “Castration of nudes” in the Vatican (i.e. removing penises and putting fig leaves on the genital regions of statues) to increasingly sexualized images in photography during the 1980’s, art has proven to provoke debate and incite wrath upon itself.
Everyday, I see images that intrigue, infuriate, and entice me. Some images evoke more emotions than others and lead me to ponder about the issues presented and others pique my interest only to die down immediately after. Theoretically speaking, if art, as many say, is just a means of self-expression and as human beings we have the right to express ourselves, then why shouldn’t someone have the freedom to draw and say what they wish?
Yet this kind of thinking is reserved for the purely ideological realm; in the real world, everything is mired by politics and bogged down by personal motivations that often the lines of freedom get blurred and the definition becomes hazy. We all want to be politically correct so we censor ourselves and hide our real thoughts and intentions. We realize that it is not appropriate to say or do certain things in various contexts, but we are cognizant of the fact that even these norms change with time and cultural shifts. Right now, in this time, the world is not prepared for this kind of drawing and perhaps it will never be. But I don’t think that means one should not create such things; merely that one should be more careful about the avenues by which they display their work and more considerate about the people it may affect.
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